Destiny Rewritten
by cowlicklesschick
Summary: As the oldest son of Chief Hakoda, Zuko hasn't imagined a future any more exciting than dealing with Sokka's daily antics. But when the Avatar is discovered, life suddenly involves about twice as many adventures, a few new friends, and one Fire Nation princess - who doesn't know if she should listen to her heart, or her ancestors. Zutara-swap-AU. Feedback is greatly coveted.
1. Prologue

_**So. I got this idea from a piece of fanart that I stumbled across by mere happenstance. I instantly fell in love with the idea of a Zutara swap, but I've done it a little differently than others I've seen. Instead of taking everything about the two and switching it, I've only exchanged some aspects of their personalities and backgrounds.**_

 _ **I have worked**_ _ **so**_ __ _ **hard**_ _ **on this story. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, because figuring out which parts I should swap and which parts I should keep original kind of gave me a headache. But it's been gloriously fun so far, and it's really making me think outside the box as a writer. Which is a good thing. Boxes were made to be worked outside of, after all.**_

 _ **Anyway, I hope you like it, and please let me know about any ideas, suggestions, critiques, or comments you may have.**_

/

One evening, seated around the fire at supper time, in the middle of the dark winter, Kanna looks at her oldest grandson and wonders.

He is different than his brother – Sokka is easy banter, self-assurance, charge-ahead-and-take-control, all jokes and lighthearted fun. His mind is never at rest, constantly thinking and planning, both for his own entertainment and for the betterment of their people. He is not malicious – far from it, Kanna thinks with a smile. In fact, if they had any young women his age in the village, he would probably be called sweet.

Zuko is different.

He is calm, he is rational, and his temper is not easily provoked. When it does make appearance, however, it sends most people of their tribe running for cover. He shows a tendency to hold a grudge – though, she admits sadly, he has more right to be bitter than most – yet he displays a quiet, almost shy kindness. She once saw him hurry across their village to help a young expectant mother carry a heavy roll of shark-seal skin inside her hut. He makes sure his boots are free of snow before he comes inside so as not to make more work for her to clean, he lets the elderly have the larger pieces of jerky when their food stores run low, and then he is the first to rise the next morning and go hunt.

He will make a fine chief. In Hakoda's absence, Zuko has assumed the unofficial mantle of leadership in their small community, and while he relies heavily on Sokka for advice and support, everyone looks to their chief's oldest son for guidance, including Sokka himself. It brings a sense of security during this time of war and uneasiness.

Kanna knows that Zuko worries for his father – Sokka does, too, but Zuko agonizes when he makes decisions for the tribe, wondering what Hakoda would do in his stead. He has not yet learned to rely on himself in matters of great importance.

But it is more than that, she thinks, whenever she spots Zuko standing on the outskirts of their village, gazing out towards the never-ending horizon where the sky and the sea touch. He has grown up hearing stories of ruthless soldiers in red and gold, of flames destroying entire towns, temples, (even, Kanna grimaces, entire races of people), and he knows also that his father is out trying to stem the ever rising tide of innocent blood that has been shed at the hands of the Fire Nation.

Deep in her heart, Kanna wonders if Hakoda's choice to try and keep his sons out of the war will be the very thing that drags them into it, and if his choice to leave the tribe in Zuko's care will be the one reason, she fears, the boy will seek a future beyond their world of ice and snow.

/

One morning, seated at the table in the private dining cabin, Iroh looks at his youngest niece and wonders.

Katara is sometimes little more than a walking pile of contradictions.

She is wise beyond her years, yet not even a Princess of the Fire Nation can always hide her emotions, and lately Iroh has seen a great deal of doubt in her golden eyes.

She is rough, jagged around the edges of her soul, yet the center of her being has remained untarnished, pure and smooth like a precious gem.

She is beautiful – she is Ursa reincarnated, Iroh thinks in bittersweet fondness – yet there is a pain she carries within her that causes her features to often twist with rage and anguish. He cannot remember the last time he saw her smile, and he does not think he has _ever_ heard her laugh.

Even now she sits, stoically, with ramrod-straight posture, her legs crossed beneath her as she chews her food in meticulous silence. When the servants come forward to refill her glass of water, she does not thank them, but she does not snap at them either, the way her sister would.

Iroh stifles a sigh. He has never seen two people more different than Azula and Katara. The Crown Princess is poisoned, consumed with her thirst for power and the Fire Lord's approval, where Katara seems that she would be the same, were it not for her mother and, Iroh likes to think, himself.

Ozai has forged the successor of his dreams in Azula. Katara he cast aside from her first breath, declaring that she was lucky to even have been born. The sentiment was repeated throughout her childhood, and Iroh does not think he will ever be able to forgive his brother for the look those words put onto Katara's face.

Neither, he thinks in a moment of anger, will he be able to forgive Ozai for the mangled flesh that has just now begun to heal. It has been almost six months, and still the wound is bright pink, refusing to fade to a ghostly white that people associate with old battle scars. Even as he watches, Katara absentmindedly reaches one hand to ensure that her hair hangs correctly, shielding the worst of the scar from view.

Like the mark upon her skin, Katara comes across as callous and uncaring to almost everyone she meets. Yet he, her uncle and closest confidant, sees what she cannot hide, no matter how much she wants to:

Katara is _kind_.

Just as mountains have veins of gold or silver, buried beneath rock and invisible to the untrained eye, Katara has a thread of pure, untainted goodness woven into the very fabric of her being, and its presence is perhaps the main reason she is not made in her father's likeness.

Katara tries desperately to deny, even to herself, that she cares for others – some days, she snaps and growls at anyone and everyone. Yet the same day, she will have the captain rearrange the schedules for guard patrols, because one of the female guards is having her moon blood. The next day she will allow an extra half hour for the noonday meal, because it is the day letters arrive from home.

If asked, she will reply – coldly – that keeping her crew content is in _her_ best interests, and she really just wanted them to stop whining about all and sundry. But what she does not realize is that the story of her mark has travelled all over the Fire Nation, and among her crew. They know the price she paid, and they also know that, in a way, she paid it for their sakes.

And so no one dares to thank her for the unexpected gestures of thoughtfulness. But no one dislikes her, either, and sometime Iroh almost thinks that if they were forced to choose between Ozai and Katara, they would opt to suffer the flames beside their princess.

Iroh almost wants to laugh when he recalls the day that the captain had informed him of the crew's surprising loyalty to Katara. He knows that if Katara had any idea of how many people knew about her "soft spot", she would be furious.

It only makes him wonder how she will react if, one day, the whole world will be able to witness the unrecognized potential for goodness in the Fire Nation.


	2. Discovery

The snow that continuously fell clung to the stiff leather of her shin guards, the heavy wool of her clothes. Some flakes clung to her hair, making the black tresses look like they were studded with small diamonds that vanished in mere seconds. The flakes piled softly around the edges of the ship's deck, and there was a drift almost as tall as she was, up against the control house, right next to one the smaller smokestacks. The snow there looked dirty and tired, grayed with soot and the dirt from everyone's shoes.

Katara frowned and tugged her coat more snugly about her; everywhere she looked, there was nothing but white slopes of ice, and pale gray ocean that was endlessly deep and cold.

She hated the cold.

"Princess Katara, perhaps we should go below deck for a time. This much cold air is not good for a firebender's health."

She didn't move. "I'm fine, Uncle. Go ahead if you must."

There was no reply, but she knew he'd gone down to the warm cabin that they used for dining. Uncle Iroh's solution to everything was a hot cup of tea. She suppressed a shiver.

She'd procrastinated searching this far south for a long time; part of her hoped that her prize lay at the opposite pole, but months of sailing through bitter cold had only ended in frustration. Eventually she'd had no choice but to come here, and even now there had been no trace of him after three weeks.

Mindlessly, she reached up to finger her scar. Every day, every hour spent in fruitless searching, every voyage taken to some remote village on a hunch or the smallest clue – it only reminded her of what would not be hers until she succeeded.

 _See you never, Kat,_ the voice echoed in her ears, high and graceful, but somehow for all its social nicety, was colder than the glaciers that surrounded her.

She scowled again. No matter how she tried, her ghosts caught up with her. Some demons just followed you everywhere.

 _Not that you're trying particularly hard to avoid those memories,_ she reminded herself. _Aren't you still homesick?_

With a rueful shake of her head, Katara turned and headed towards the stairs – perhaps, just this once, her uncle had a point about tea.

A sudden, distant boom echoed across the water; instantly, the deck was crawling with Fire Nation sailors, and Katara whirled about only to stare slack-jawed at the pillar of blue-white that was glowing straight up to the heavens. After a moment, she breathed in deeply.

" _Finally."_

/

Sokka was dead meat. As in, last-summer's-shark-seal-jerky-dead-meat.

Zuko shook his wet hair out of his eyes, glaring at his idiot brother who sat in his canoe a few feet away.

"See, now you know how it feels to have water dropped on you _for no reason_ ," Sokka smirked, gesturing with his empty bucket. "Although, I _did_ have a reason, whereas you never have one for drenching me from head to toe."

"I do too have a reason," Zuko shot back, fighting the urge to stomp his foot on the floorboards of his own canoe. "I have zero training, so it's not like I'm doing it on purpose. It's an _accident_."

"Riiiight."

"Sokka, why would I intentionally throw water on your clothes, if I'm the one who has to wash them?" he asked testily, wishing their canoes were closer so he could reach to smack the back of Sokka's head. Or muss his wolftail. Whichever irritated him more.

Sokka blinked. "Oh. I guess I hadn't thought of that. Although you know Gran-Gran likes to do the laundry herself. Says it's not right for the _future chief_ ," here, Sokka adopted a pompous tone and pretended to look down his nose, earning a scowl from his brother, "to do such menial chores."

"I know that," Zuko said, quietly now. "But you and I both know that she can't lift our parkas when they're wet. They're too heavy."

"And big," Sokka added.

Zuko grinned. He and Sokka weren't quite two years apart in age, so they had hit the long anticipated growth spurt at roughly the same time. Zuko was still taller, much to Sokka's frustration, but Sokka was already developing muscles on his gangly, fifteen year old limbs that Zuko didn't think he'd ever have, so maybe it was an even swap.

"Yeah," he conceded, "that too."

Sokka grinned before a shadow darted through the water, skimming below their canoes before swimming away.

"There it is!" Sokka exclaimed, grabbing his paddle. In his haste, the bow of his canoe scraped against Zuko's, causing the latter to clutch the sides to keep from capsizing. He threw an irritated glance at Sokka, but it went unnoticed. Sighing, Zuko grabbed his own paddle and followed slowly, sure that if he showed up too soon then Sokka would panic that Zuko was stealing his glory.

As he rounded another iceberg, however, he was surprised and a little worried when his brother was nowhere in sight. He paused, and listened; he thought he heard a splash from the other side of a massive glacier.

He made it around one side, now able to make out Sokka's chatter – Zuko thought that maybe if Sokka would just keep quiet, then he wouldn't scare the prey off and would actually catch something – and as he came around the last bend he rolled his eyes at the sight of Sokka wrestling with the huge fish, trying valiantly to keep it inside his canoe.

Something caught his peripheral, and his heart stopped in his throat when he spotted the enormous shark seal that was crawling across the ice, less than thirty feet away from his brother and moving fast.

"Sokka!"

Startled, Sokka's hands slipped and the fish leaped back into the water. Zuko was pinned with a glare, but he didn't notice.

"Move!" he yelled, and Sokka's expression went from confused to horrified in about two seconds flat when he turned and saw the massive animal closing in on him. He screeched and flailed about for his paddle, only to drop it in the water. Clumsily he reached for it, never taking his eyes off of the shark seal that was now almost within striking distance, its teeth bared and a shiver-inducing snarl coming from its throat.

Zuko paddled his own canoe faster, but he knew he wouldn't get there in time. Frantically, he stood up and braced his feet wide to keep the canoe balanced, and flung one arm up as fast as he could.

A clean, sharp line of water rose in the air and smacked the seal across the forehead. It paused, turning and noticing Zuko for the first time. Immediately it dove into the water, headed straight for Zuko's canoe, and he just barely had time to make panicked eye contact with Sokka before something hit the hull and he went flying into the water, Sokka's shout echoing in his ears.

The water was dark, and so cold that it felt like it was burning him, not freezing. Zuko desperately struggled against the weight of his heavy fur-lined clothes; he had no idea where the shark seal was, and the little light that came through all of the ice didn't reveal anything. He clawed upwards, and he thought maybe his fingertips broke the surface for a fraction of a second before a flipper came out of nowhere and slammed him back under.

His lungs burned for air; his vision went foggy as his back hit a wall of ice behind him. He couldn't make out the surface from this deep, and he tried again to see where the predator was lurking. Suddenly a pink, jagged-toothed maw appeared before him, and he barely managed to dodge. The shark seal's snout smashed against the ice, and in his oxygen-starved brain, Zuko had an idea so crazy that even Sokka would probably be afraid to try it.

The seal lunged again, and instinctively he thrust one hand forward, shoving the animal away with a jet of water. Knowing he only had seconds, he closed his eyes, focusing on the water surrounding him. He refused to drown – he was the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe, and by La his own element was _not_ going to be the death of him. He felt the ice, cold and unyielding behind him, and he pressed his palms against the surface, and focused….

Even underwater, the sound of the ice splitting was almost deafening. He felt himself falling backwards into the crack, and looked up to see daylight above him. As he made his first stroke, the seal managed to wedge its head into the crevice, snagging the back of Zuko's hand with a tooth. He recoiled, and used another water-jet to shove the animal away, before he swam harder and faster than he ever had before.

With a ragged gasp, his head broke the surface, and he barely had time to appreciate the warmth of the sun on his face before something grabbed the back of his parka and heaved.

Sokka hauled him over the side of his canoe; Zuko collapsed on the floor, choking and rasping for breath, but was suddenly grabbed by the shoulders. Sokka shook him.

"Are you completely insane?" he shouted, even as he stripped off his own parka to wrap it around Zuko's trembling form. "Waterbending at a friggin' _sea creature_ , yeah, that's a _great_ idea…Spirits, it's a miracle you even _survived_ the nineteen months before I was born…"

Zuko clenched his jaw to try and stop his chattering teeth. Sokka was wrapping every blanket they had in both canoes around him, using an extra pair of mittens to wring the water out of his hair, and putting both hot stones that Gran-Gran had sent along for their feet on either side of Zuko on the bottom of the canoe.

Eventually his ranting turned to mumbling, and finally he stopped, adjusting the blanket one last time before turning sober eyes on his.

Zuko's teeth were still chattering so hard that he was afraid he'd bite off his tongue if he tried talking, so he smiled faintly in reassurance. It must have worked, because Sokka rolled his eyes in exasperation before grabbing a length of rope to tie Zuko's canoe to his.

After a few minutes of watching Sokka's shaking hands retie the knot three times, Zuko cleared his throat.

"Sokka."

His brother stiffened, but didn't look at him.

"I'm fine," Zuko said quietly, and Sokka kept his face carefully turned away, until abruptly he whirled around and poked Zuko's chest through the many layers of wool and fur.

"You better be," he said irritably. "Because I _don't_ want to be chief."

Zuko smirked. "Afraid you won't be as great at it as I am?" he teased, and felt relieved when Sokka gave him a light shove.

"As if," Sokka sneered. "I just enjoy the luxury of blaming somebody else every time something gets screwed up."

"I don't blame you," Zuko grinned ruefully before he shuddered again, and he hunkered down into the cocoon of furs and rolled his eyes at the worry on Sokka's face.

"Relax, I'm just cold. Get me home so I can have some of Gran-Gran's stewed sea prunes."

Sokka had barely opened his mouth to reply when something big, something old and massive and ancient, moved deep beneath the water's surface. Zuko heard it, felt the vibrations all way the through the hull of the canoe and all of the blankets he was wrapped in, and he glanced worriedly over the side at the resulting ripples before he met Sokka's eyes.

"Let's go," he said anxiously, and Sokka grabbed his paddle, but it hadn't touched the water when something caught his eye.

"Oh, _Tui_ – "Sokka managed, but immediately rammed the blunt edge of his oar against the etched surface of the iceberg that had suddenly burst out of the water. Zuko noticed several things very quickly; one was that this was a very strange iceberg – it was almost perfectly round, yet its surface looked carved, and it was glowing brightly from within. The second was that he must have done more damage to the ice than he'd realized, if pieces were still breaking free and coming to the surface, and thirdly (and weirdest of all) were the silhouettes of a small human and massive, unrecognizable animal (that looked very furry and very dangerous) that he could just make out through the ice.

Sokka had managed to shove them away from the iceberg, rather than let it capsize their canoe again, and now they sat rocking on the waves, gaping in silence.

Zuko's heart stuttered when the small, seated figure within the ice opened its glowing eyes.

"There's someone in there," Sokka whispered hoarsely. Zuko swallowed.

"Sokka, get us out of here. Now."

Sokka turned wide eyes towards him. "Are you kidding? There is a _person_ frozen inside that iceberg who _isn't dead_ , and you want to just sail away?"

"I – " Zuko started, but Sokka heaved himself out of the canoe onto the ice, picking his way towards the giant glowing iceberg.

"Sokka!" he hissed, trying to get up and failing when the combined weight of all the furs and blankets pulled him down again. Impatiently he fought his way free, shuddering when the air met his still-drenched parka, and he had just stood up when Sokka took his first swing with his machete.

"Are you out of your _skull_ – "Zuko began furiously, trying to focus on a proper lecture while also trying not to slip and fall back into the water.

He made it about ten feet behind Sokka when the machete broke the ice's surface with a loud _crack_ , and the resulting…well, Zuko couldn't honestly call it an explosion, it was really more like a giant _whoosh_ of air, but it was powerful enough to send them both flying backwards several feet. All of the air in his lungs was forced out in a painful wheeze, but his eyes were wide open, staring at the column of light that was emitting from the iceberg.

When he could breathe enough to sit up again, Zuko shook the snow out of his hair and scowled. "So did you have a plan in case that's a giant angry spirit? Or were you just going to invite it home for dinner?"

Sokka looked far too excited about this whole thing to take Zuko's irritation seriously. He bounded to his feet and hurried towards the no longer glowing iceberg, which now had a huge hole in its side, like a giant bowl. He reached one hand to start climbing, and Zuko snagged the back of his shirt.

"Would you please _try_ to think this through?" Zuko snapped.

"Oh, come on Zuko, it's probably totally harmless – "

At that precise moment, a low, rumbling roar echoed from within the ice, and Sokka's eyes were bigger than the full moon. Zuko reached to whack him on the back of the head again, but was immediately distracted by the small figure that had suddenly appeared at the edge of the iceberg's opening. His jaw hung open when he realized it was a boy – a child, really – who was blinking blearily at them and rubbing his head confusedly.

"Uh…" Zuko managed, but yelped when the kid collapsed, tumbling down the side. Without thinking, Zuko darted forward and caught him, carefully cradling the small bald head as he checked it for injuries and laid it back against the soft snow.

With a groan, the boy's face contorted in a grimace before his eyes popped open. Zuko stifled a gasp; his eyes were gray, the color of the clouds that brought the summer snowstorms, but despite the fact that this boy couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen years old, there was an ancient, weathered look in them. Something about those eyes made Zuko's heart thud nervously, even as he leaned forward.

"Are you okay?"

"Ugh…" came another groan. The kid's face twisted in a grimace before he blinked slowly. "I think so…where am I?"

Not a question he heard every day, but then again nothing about this was ' _every day'_. "….the South Pole."

"South Pole?" came the mumbled reply. A few seconds passed, then he sat up so quickly he almost clocked Zuko in the chin. "Oh, wow – I haven't been penguin sledding in _forever_ , wanna come?"

Zuko blinked. "What?"

"Penguin sledding. All the kids are doing it at the North Pole…." the boy said, peering around brightly. Zuko immediately thought of a small, hyperactive animal.

"Um...aren't you cold?" he gestured to the kid's odd clothing – yellow and orange linen robes that looked thin enough to strain tea through without changing the taste.

"Nah, I'm great! Let's go find some penguins." The boy turned and jauntily started off across the ice, and Zuko exchanged one incredulous, dumbfounded look with Sokka before he found his voice.

"Wait, uh…wait, what's your name?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," the boy said politely. He turned and bowed. "I'm Aang." Another grumbling roar came from inside the iceberg. Aang's eyes widened before he scurried towards the sound. Zuko yelped and tried to grab him back, but the kid took some kind of super-jump and fluttered – actually _fluttered_ – out of sight within the ice.

By the time Zuko and Sokka reached the top, Aang was busy petting….something that would probably eat Zuko if it got angry. He gulped.

"What is that?" he finally managed, and Aang gave a bright smile.

"This is Appa, my flying bison!"

"Right," Sokka deadpanned. "And Zuko's the Fire Prince."

"Oh, cool, really? I didn't know Fire Lord Sozin had a younger son." Aang stepped into a weird looking bow, but Zuko stopped him.

"No, no, Sokka's just kidding. Which," he started, turning to his brother, "maybe you shouldn't so much, since some people don't always know and will apparently assume I'm the son of Fire Lord So…-"

Here, he trailed off, his eyes widening.

"Um…who…who did you say was Fire Lord?"

"Sozin," Aang said cheerfully.

Zuko glanced at Sokka, but was given a how-should-I-know shrug. "Fire Lord Sozin's been dead for almost sixty years," he replied slowly.

Aang looked puzzled. "Sixty years? Is that because the days are like six months long down here or something?"

"No," Zuko flapped a hand impatiently. "No, I mean he died almost _sixty years_ _ago_. His son Azulon was next, but he's been dead for almost six years now. Ozai is the current Fire Lord."

"Azulon got to be Fire Lord?" Aang cried. "Neat! He's always talking about –"

"Aang," Zuko interrupted, feeling that they were going in circles. "Do you know about Fire Lord Ozai?"

"Who?"

Zuko exchanged another look with Sokka, and they reached the same conclusion.

"I think we need to head back," Sokka put in.

"Aw, but I wanted to find some penguins – "Aang started to say, but Zuko interrupted irritably.

"Look, if I don't get to a fire soon I'll end up frozen stiff."

Aang's eyes widened as he noticed, for the first time apparently, Zuko's drenched clothes.

"Oh, no! Here, let me help," and before anyone could say anything else, the little guy had crouched, thrust his hands towards Zuko, and the resulting blast of air left Zuko even colder, but somehow completely dry except for the layers closest to his skin.

He turned to stare at his brother, whose mouth was hanging open again, and looked at Aang.

"Did…did you just _airbend_?"

"Yeah…why do you guys look so surprised? Don't any airbenders ever come down here?"

 _Buddy, you don't know the half of it_ , Zuko wanted to say, but instead he swallowed thickly and turned back towards the canoes.

"Aang, we need to get you to the village."

/

Four hot bowls of soup later, and Zuko was feeling marginally better. His grandmother had given them both a mild scolding – "you could have least _killed_ the animal, we're low on lamp oil and shark seals have the best fat for making it" – but had otherwise been all concern, first sending him for a change of clothes and then wrapping him in every fur and blanket they had in their igloo. Currently he sat with Sokka before the fire, sipping a cup of strong tea and watching Gran-Gran fuss over their visitor.

"You must eat," she urged once again, but Aang peered into the bowl of turtle-seal soup and frowned.

"Um, no thank you…"

Gran-Gran's eyes sparked dangerously. Zuko cleared his throat.

"How about some tea?"

Aang brightened. "I'd love some!"

Slightly mollified, Gran-Gran passed Zuko to get the teapot. "Foolish boy, refusing a hot meal. What will the others think if a guest freezes to death in the chief's house?"

"Gran-Gran, you know from the stories that airbenders were vegetarians – "

"Yes, but the airbenders are extinct. That child is merely playing a game, imagining things." Gran-Gran sent a disapproving scowl in Aang's direction. Aang was busy listening to Sokka's account of Zuko's epic victory (including an actual tsunami and several more shark-seals than Zuko recalled).

"Well, even if he is, let him have his fun. He's not hurting anybody."

"Except himself," Gran-Gran sniffed, and, not unkindly, shoved the cup of tea in Aang's face. "Drink."

"Thank you," Aang replied politely. Sokka paused his tale for a moment to eat some of his own soup and bread, and Zuko seized his chance.

"So, Aang, I think I misunderstood you earlier."

"About what?"

"Well, about the whole who's-the-Fire-Lord thing. You thought it was Sozin?"

"That's who I remember," Aang shrugged. "He's been Fire Lord my whole life."

Something wasn't adding up. Actually a whole lot of somethings, but Aang was beginning to look uncomfortable, and while Zuko was pretty sure this happy-go-lucky kid wasn't Fire Nation, he couldn't just ignore the unsettled feeling in his gut.

"Aang." He used his no-arguing voice, the same one he had to pull on the kids whenever they kept knocking down Sokka's watch tower. "I need you to be honest with me."

Aang stared back, even and steady, until finally he sighed. "Okay. I guess I owe you guys that much." He took a deep breath and folded his hands in his lap. "I'm the Avatar."

Zuko blinked. "The Avatar."

"Yeah."

"Really."

"Really."

He coughed, and rubbed his hands along his wool-covered thighs. "Okay. Um. So, what are you doing here? _How_ did you get here? What happened, why did you – "

"Zuko." Gran-Gran laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Slowly."

Right. He might – _might_ – be the Avatar, but he was also a kid. A very young, uncertain-looking kid who sat like he was trying to curl up and be invisible.

Zuko took a deep breath of his own, and tried again. "Alright, Aang. Let's say you are the Avatar – "

"I _am_ ," Aang said, a bit crossly.

" – where have you been for the past hundred years?"

"H-hundred years?" Aang paled. "I was in the ice for a _hundred years?_ "

"Well, that's how long the Avatar's been missing, anyway," Sokka interjected. "So unless you had some other wild escapade before becoming an Aang-cicle, then, yeah, you were in the ice for a hundred years."

Aang stared, wide-eyed, at the pelt they were all sitting on before letting out a long breath. "Holy monkeyfeathers."

Zuko suppressed a dry smile. _Got that right, kiddo_.

"All right, so," Aang brightened somewhat, "What have I missed?"

Oh, boy. He looked back at Gran-Gran, but she held her hands out dismissively. He couldn't really blame her – no matter how old you got, there wasn't really a set pattern of how to break it to a kid that his entire race, culture, way of life had been annihilated.

"Well, there's the war," Sokka began conversationally. Aang looked concerned.

"War? Like, it's still going on?"

"Has been for a hundred years."

"That's a pretty popular number," Aang mumbled. He rubbed his head. "So, who's fighting?"

"The Fire Nation are basically trying to overrun everybody. The Water Tribes are pretty much beat, at least this one is, and the Earth Kingdom has been holding out for a while, but with the Fire Nation's technology it's only a matter of time. They got _so close_ with Ba Sing Se, but – "

"Hang on," Aang interrupted Sokka's tirade. "What about the Air Nomads?"

Sokka faltered. Zuko cleared his throat. "They…they went down first, actually. Fire Lord Sozin ordered attacks on all four of the Air Temples."

"Oh, no!" Aang leapt to his feet. "Are they okay? I should go, I need to make sure – "

"Aang – "

"It's been a hundred years, I don't know if Monk Gyatso is even alive but maybe someone there will remember me, I just – "

"Aang." Startled by the sharp edge in Zuko's tone, he looked up. Zuko's throat tightened. "There…there aren't any Air Temples to go back to."

"What?" For the first time, anger twisted Aang's features. "They destroyed the temples?"

"Well, no, they're still standing, but…but the people, Aang. The other airbenders. They aren't there anymore."

"Why? Were they captured?"

Was this how his father had felt, having to explain to his sons that their mother was gone? Spirits, Zuko didn't even _know_ this kid, yet there was something in those gray eyes that made telling the truth so very, very hard.

"No…no, they –"

"Zuko!"

The cry came from outside, and when he stuck his head out the door and caught sight of the black flecks of soot falling from the sky, he tightened his jaw. Of course there had to be a Fire Nation ship nearby when that beam of light had appeared – just their luck.

Sokka was already bolting for the small igloo where they kept the meager supply of weapons, and Zuko turned to his grandmother. "Get the others and make it to the center of the village."

Gran-Gran barely paused to heave a toddling child that ran past on chubby, unsteady legs up onto her hip before shepherding the other women, mostly younger with small children, into the tiny clearing that sat in the middle of their equally tiny clump of huts.

" _You_ ," he snagged Aang by the back of his collar. "Stay here. Do not leave this igloo, do not come outside until I come to get you. Understand?"

Aang glowered. "Why do _I_ have to hide?"

"Because. Now, shoo." He gave Aang a firm nudge back inside, before running to the outskirts of the village.

Zuko took the spear Sokka offered him gladly, comforted by the whale-bone handle and the vicious curve of the turtle-orca tooth that made up the lethal end. It wasn't long before the looming steel ship broke through the cold mist, and Zuko coughed against the smoke and soot.

With bated breath, they all watched the ship take a sizable chunk out of the shoreline, and the ramp slowly lowered.

Zuko paused when the first figure came into view.

She was almost a full head shorter than him, but she carried herself in a way that commanded respect, even fear. Her Fire Nation armor was polished and carried adornments that spoke of a high position, but that didn't make any sense because she looked to be somewhere between Sokka and Aang age-wise.

Six soldiers followed her onto the snow, all seven pairs of eyes focused intently on the two of them.

Zuko had moved closer before he'd realized his feet were moving; he felt better about the impulsive move when he felt Sokka right beside him.

"What do you want?" Zuko thanked every spirit there was that his voice didn't crack.

The girl gave him a once-over before she answered, her voice dripping with disdain and giving the impression that she was a person who was very much used to having everything her way. "I am only here for the Avatar. Give him to me, and we'll leave this place without harming any of you."

"The Avatar? He's gone, isn't he? Disappeared along the same time your people started this gods-forsaken war."

Something in her gold eyes flashed. "Don't play games with me, peasants," she spat. "I know he's here, and I'd rather not have to resort to force. But don't think I won't."

Zuko clenched his jaw. He'd been right – whoever this girl was, she knew how to make a commanding presence, how to exude power and confidence. It was incredibly annoying.

"Look, if the Avatar is alive, then that's news to us. And why would he be _here_ , of all places?"

She gave an impatient snarl, and a bright-gold dagger of fire appeared out of her clenched fist. "Where is he?"

Zuko narrowed his eyes and shook his head, then shoved Sokka out of the way when the girl charged. Her flame dagger was at the ready, her eyes glinted dangerously, and Zuko felt the heat of that one small flame come close enough to sear his face off -

" _Stop!"_

A gust of air blasted the girl back, knocking her down onto her rump and scattering the soldiers behind her. Zuko stumbled forward, and looked behind him, gasping for breath.

Aang stood with his staff pointed menacingly at the girl, who had quickly regained her footing. "You're not going to hurt anyone else because of me. I'll come with you."

"Aang – " Sokka hissed, only to be ignored. Aang walked between him and Zuko, giving the latter a serene smile.

"Thanks for the tea, Zuko. I'll come visit again, don't worry!"

Zuko stood very still until the ramp closed again behind Aang and the firebenders, and then he swore, loudly and angrily, for once not caring if the little kids could hear him.

"Well. Now what?" Sokka asked him, once he'd stopped stomping around in the snow bellowing curses at the sky.

Zuko took a deep breath of cold, clear air. Air. No one had seen an airbender in a century, and even if Aang wasn't the Avatar – it was becoming increasingly harder to think that he wasn't – he was still the last airbender in existence. That had to count for something, right?

"Now…we go after him."

Sokka didn't look surprised. "Well, I'm game, but I doubt we can catch up to a Fire Nation battleship in a canoe."

Zuko smiled faintly. "That's why I'm hoping Appa the flying bison is a vegetarian."

/

 _ **This was originally posted on my tumblr - cowlicklesschick. Go check out my blog if you like, and thanks very much for reading!**_

 _ **At the risk of sounding desperate for compliments: PLEASE GIVE ME SOME FEEDBACK. Likes are great and are very much appreciated, but reviews and comments, asks, whatever are what I'm really looking for here. I'm really, really REALLY nervous about this. It's the biggest, most complex writing job I've ever taken on, and I just want it to come out right. So any help you can give me…well. Just give it, okay?**_


	3. Flying and Magic

**_I don't think I can fully articulate how much I'm enjoying this project. It's excruciatingly hard, and it's nothing like I've ever done before, but it's SO. MUCH. FUN._**

 ** _I hope you like this; it's not very long but it was good place to leave off, so chapter 3 will definitely be a whopper. So far the plot is following canon pretty closely, which I hope isn't too boring. Just wait till the Earth Kingdom. That, my dears, is when the poop shall hit the fan._**

 ** _Enjoy, and as always I'm starved for love and attention over here so please let me know what you think of it._**

 **/**

"My dear, perhaps it would be prudent to – "

"Uncle, we discussed this. He's a prisoner, not a guest. Take him to the brig," she ordered the two soldiers holding Aang by his upper arms. The old man standing beside the girl who had gone ashore at the village looked troubled. Just before Aang and his guards made it through the door going below deck, the man spoke again.

"Princess Katara, why don't you – "

Aang strained his ears, but the heavy steel door clanged shut behind them, and he was alone with the two soldiers, wearing strangely-ominous looking helmets and standing in a tiny hallway that was bathed in dim red light.

His mind raced. Whoever this _Princess Katara_ was, Aang didn't trust her. She was a firebender, and had tried to hurt Zuko and Sokka, who were nice to him and had given him tea. That put her in the "not nice" category in his mind, and when he remembered the story Zuko had started to tell him, about the Fire Nation attacking the Air Temples, he clenched his jaw.

In one smooth leap, his feet landed nimbly behind his two guards; a gust of air knocked them both to the floor a second later, too stunned to shout. Aang bolted down the hall, skipping around soldiers and managing to snap the binds around his hands one unfortunate guard's helmet spikes. From then on he opened every door, looking as thoroughly as he dared. He couldn't leave without his staff, but if she still had it with her – _there_.

His staff was propped against a chest of some kind, and Aang didn't really notice how the room was much bigger than any other on board until the door was pushed closed.

"Lost?"

Katara was somehow much scarier looking in here than in the village. Her element surrounded them; there were candles, a small incense pan on a low table, and now there were flames licking at her palms. Aang gripped the glider staff, felt the ancient, splintered wood dig into the soft flesh between his fingers. The glider had been a gift from Master Gyatso, and it had survived a hundred years of ice just like Aang himself had. His back stiffened.

"What did you do to the airbenders?" he asked. The princess faltered and blinked in surprise before scowling again.

" _I_ didn't do anything to them. That battle was won a century ago."

"Air Nomads don't believe in violence. There was no _battle_. And I don't care who it was, just tell me – _what happened to my people?_ "

She stared at him, the sparks long gone from her hands and a sudden look of uncertainty in her gold eyes.

"They're gone."

She said the words like she wanted to be gentle, but didn't care enough to try very hard. Aang bit back the tears that had been pushing at his control, the tears he had felt ever since that rotten, dread-tight knot had settled in his gut when Zuko didn't answer his question back in the village. She was wrong, that was all. She might be a princess, but that didn't mean she knew everything. Aang would just get off this ship and then he could go to the Southern Air Temple and find his friends. They would see.

One twist of his staff, and Katara was swept straight into a steel wall; the sound her head made at the contact would normally make Aang feel a little bad, but _she_ was the one who had tried to hurt Zuko. He took the stairs back up to the deck three at a time, using airbending to propel himself faster and lighter, and when he finally broke free of the doorway he hurled his glider into the air, grabbed the braces and jumped.

/

Zuko was having a sort-of-bad-day.

Sure, he and Sokka found the Avatar, and also the last airbender on the planet. But, y'know, he fell in the ocean that morning, and the ocean is mostly _ice_ where he's from, so that wasn't exactly a fun experience. Then their village was raided by firebenders, and he and Sokka were forced to say goodbye to their home and their grandmother so that they could escort the world's greatest hope for peace to the North Pole, so that _he_ could master the elements before he even reached puberty.

So, yeah. Not the best day.

He never had the best control of his temper – it took a while to hit boiling point, but once it did, it's almost like an out-of-body experience. And he almost fell in the water _again_ when he was climbing up the side of the ship from Appa's back, so by the time he actually reached the deck, Zuko was in a really bad mood.

When he saw the firebender girl jump and grab Aang's ankle, he basically snapped.

Before he realized what he was doing, he ran and full-out tackled her around the middle and brought them both crashing to the deck. He didn't notice where Aang had gone – he had gotten away, that was all that mattered for now – but he did notice that _he_ had landed on top of the girl.

As in, complete body contact, his face was planted on her chest and her arms were, momentarily, around his neck since he was the closest thing she'd had to grab onto when she had lost her balance.

It took less than two seconds for her to release her hold and use one hand to split his lip wide open. He spat blood onto the steel deck; she wedged her knees on his hips and rolled. Zuko could tell she was trying to create distance, but instinctively he knew that was what he needed to avoid. She wouldn't be able to use her bending at this close range without hurting herself too. So he grabbed her arm and pinned it to the floor, tried to get some kind of leverage and blocked her punches best he could.

Dimly he heard a low, grumbling roar, and an indignant squawk that sounded an awful lot like Sokka, but his moment of distraction cost him. In three short jabs, the girl got him in the eye, the ribs, and hamstring, and quite suddenly he found himself on his back, held firmly in place by her foot. One of her hands pulled back and a ball of golden-bright fire lit above her fingertips, and Zuko had sudden difficulty swallowing –

There was a wild screech, and Sokka literally tripped onto the deck, having jumped from Appa's back, which was now level with the ship's side.

 _Huh. He really can fly_ , Zuko mused.

The girl changed her aim, now intending the fireball for Sokka, and Zuko reacted on sheer instinct.

One arm lashed, and a trail of solid ice crackled into existence on the steel's surface.

"Hey!" Sokka yelled.

"Sorry!" He would not blush like a child while being pinned to the floor by an _actual_ child. He would _not_.

Sokka hacked away at the ice encasing his feet, and Zuko whirled his arm in the opposite direction. Somehow, miraculously, it worked. His wad of ice slammed into her face, knocking her backwards several feet – which, why she'd given him time to land a hit was puzzling, maybe she was shocked that someone could suck _so much_ at bending. Zuko stumbled over to his brother, and took out his own machete and started chopping.

There was a _whoosh_ , and he smelled ash; he whirled around and saw Aang blocking bursts of fire with his staff, and just as Sokka's feet finally came free, the last blow sent the boy tumbling over the side.

The girl turned to face them. There wasn't time to think, no time to argue. Zuko grabbed the back of Sokka's parka and tossed him onto Appa's back, but before he could follow, the ocean exploded.

Everyone – guards, the girl, Sokka, Zuko, even Appa stared at the column of water with the tiny figure in yellow and orange linen perched at the very top. He was so far up that Zuko could barely make out his shape, but even from that distance he could see one thing very, very clearly – the white, power-fueled glow of Aang's eyes and tattoos.

The Avatar lifted his arms, and the glaciers surrounding the ship suddenly caved; ice and snow and water crashed on and around the deck, and Zuko came dangerously close to face-planting into the railing but managed to jump at the last second.

He had time to think _please be vegetarian_ before he made contact with Appa's flank. His hands made fists, creating their own handholds in the shaggy white fur, and a few seconds later he was hanging there like some kind of freakishly-giant tick.

At that precise moment the whirlpool tower collapsed, and so did Aang.

"Yip-yip!" Sokka bellowed, and Zuko burrowed his face against the wind, but reached one hand out and caught Aang by the wrist as they flew by. He was small and light, and reminded Zuko of the time the flu had gone through their village. Sokka had had it the worst, and once his fever had finally broken Zuko still cringed whenever he felt how skinny and frail his brother was. Aang felt that way now, all skin and bone and weary loss. He wondered what the girl had said to him, if anything.

Once they had left the ship behind in a pile of gray ice and cold soot, Sokka climbed back and helped them both into the saddle. Aang still wasn't conscious, but Zuko had no idea of what to do, so they just sat and watched him.

"He's just a _kid_ ," Sokka said, irritated. "Who in their right mind would attack a child like that? Do they teach you how to be a bloodthirsty monster in the cradle where she's from – "

Aang groaned.

"Aang?" Zuko queried. Those strange gray eyes flickered before they zeroed in on him, and, to his shock as well as Sokka's, filled with tears.

"They're gone. She said they're gone. All of them."

Zuko's heart sank. He'd been afraid that would come up at some point on the ship. Selfishly, he was glad he wasn't the one who had to break the news to Aang, but that didn't make the pill any easier to swallow from the kid's view.

His throat felt tight. "I-I'm sorry, Aang."

There were a few moments of not-sure-what-else-to-say-because-what- _can_ -you-say silence, then Aang sat up.

"I want to go to the Southern Air Temple."

Zuko's breath hitched. "Are you sure? I mean, I know it's your home, but – "

"I need to be sure." Aang's voice was quiet, and reminded Zuko of how their father had sounded after their mother had died. Tired, and sad. It made Zuko's chest hurt to hear that voice coming from a boy who had just wanted to go penguin sledding.

"Okay." Zuko put one hand, cautiously, on Aang's shoulder. "We'll head there first."

"First?"

"Yeah." He cracked a smile. "The North Pole sounds like a pretty good place to master waterbending, don't you think?"

Aang studied him for a long moment, before returning his half-hearted grin. "All right. Will you learn with me?"

"I hope so," Sokka muttered under his breath. Zuko rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, Aang, I'll be right there with you the whole time. And then we can play tricks on Sokka together. Okay?"

The smile looked a bit more genuine now. "Okay."

They both ignored Sokka's whining as Appa the flying bison left the Southern Water Tribe behind in the cold wind.

/

Katara hadn't lost her temper in years. It was one of the few differences between her and her sister that she was actually proud of; Azula was renowned for her outbursts, while Katara let her anger simmer and boil like too-strong tea.

She made a face at the tea analogy. Months at sea with only Uncle as a conversation partner had taken their toll.

Still, Katara found herself grappling with the urge to stomp around the deck, melting the remains of ice and snow left behind by the child Avatar and his annoying, stupid friends who had an obnoxious case of beginner's luck. She was still incensed that the waterbender had even managed to lay a finger on her; she had endured years of training, lessons in which neither one of those two _oafs_ wouldn't survive five minutes, and here he managed to not only hold his own against her, but also steal away her prize and escape relatively unscathed.

It was, quite simply, the most _infuriating_ situation she'd ever found herself in.

"He doesn't even know how to _bend_ ," she grumbled, crossing her arms and glaring at the horizon as though the mere force of her anger would make the Avatar's magic flying hairball reappear.

"On the contrary, Princess, the young Avatar seems to have excellent control of his native element," Uncle said jovially. Katara narrowed her eyes. If she didn't know better, she'd accuse the man of having enjoyed the spectacle.

"I didn't mean _him_ ," she responded crossly. "That waterbender doesn't have a clue what he's doing. It's a miracle he got the water to respond to him at all."

"True, he doesn't appear to have much training," Uncle mused. "But he certainly made up for it with raw talent, didn't he?"

Despite herself, Katara felt her hackles rise. "Raw talent will only get you so far. Hard work has to make up the rest."

Uncle looked at her with something between fondness and sorrow. "You speak accurately, Princess Katara."

 _Of course I do. Am I not the only one in our family who lacks that 'raw talent'?_ Aloud she said, "If neither the Water Tribe peasant nor the Avatar have any training….then that will be their first priority."

Uncle raised his eyebrows in thought. "It is a long journey to the North Pole, Princess. And even then, the Northern Water Tribe has held out against the Fire Nation for many years. There is little chance of you successfully breaching their walls to retrieve him."

"The Northern Water Tribe may have held out against my father's armada, but they have yet to deal with me," she said. Her voice was like a razor and snapped in the frigid air. It reminded her a little of Azula, and that was fine. Azula always got what she wanted.

Spinning neatly on her heel, she barked new orders to the captain.

Perhaps she could use a little of Azula's backbone.


	4. Reality and Humble Pie

" _D'you think I should take my war paint?"_

 _Zuko closed his eyes and counted to ten. "I don't care, Sokka. Whatever you have room for in your pack is fine."_

" _Yeah, but will I need it?"_

" _Maybe." Every second they spent preparing only brought more questions to Zuko's mind. Would Sokka really need his war paint? Perhaps the better question was, would they need anything war related at all? He was becoming more and more worried that they would, because this entire war was happening because the Avatar was gone. Now that he was back – maybe, Zuko reminded himself, maybe Aang was the Avatar – there was bound to be some kind of ruckus._

 _Sokka went on sorting his things, while Zuko rolled his spare parka as tightly as he could and tied it with strips of rawhide. Gran-Gran had been surprisingly okay with their idea, and though Zuko couldn't stop worrying about who would make sure they had food and who would stock up the firewood supply for the blizzard months and who would repair the igloo when it started to leak again, she was currently busy wrapping enough seal-blubber jerky to last them both a year._

 _When he was finally ready, he stood up and went over to her, watching as she packed spark rocks, salt, and the basics for any sewing repairs they (meaning Zuko) would have to do._

" _Are you sure about this?"_

 _Gran-Gran smiled gently. "I will miss you both. But you and your brother are not the only strong people in the Southern Water Tribe. We will be fine." She closed the pack and handed it to him. "Zuko, you cannot come back once you find the airbender."_

" _I know," he said quietly. "They'll only come again to look for him, and this time it could be worse. I don't know where we'll go, though."_

" _I should think that would be an easy decision. Don't you need to master your bending?"_

 _Zuko stared at her. "You really think we can make it all the way to the North Pole without getting caught?"_

" _If you and your brother cannot, no one can."_

 _At that he had to fight a smile of his own. "Somehow I think sneaking past the entire Fire Nation armada is going to be different than sneaking past you for snow cream after bedtime."_

" _Perhaps. But you and Sokka are strong, and quick on your feet. You have good instincts, and as long as you both trust each other, little can stand in your way."_

 _It was solid, practical advice, but it was also the most sentimental thing his grandmother had ever said to him, and he was horrified to feel a lump in his throat that seemed to match the mistiness of her eyes. Abruptly he turned to heft the food pack onto his shoulder._

" _We should get going," he called to Sokka, who nodded and slung his own over-stuffed knapsack onto one shoulder, and immediately was pulled into a sideways slump with the weight._

" _All right! Let's go rescue the Avatar!"_

Zuko bit back a curse when the needle burrowed into his finger for the fifth time. Served him right for letting his mind wander; he was a sloppy sewer at best, terrible at worst.

Sokka, barelegged and irritable (not that Zuko could blame him; it might not be cold enough to freeze water midair but it definitely wasn't warm), fiddled with his whale-bone necklace.

"How's it coming?" Sokka asked in a trying-too-hard-to-be-cheerful-to-actually- _sound_ -cheerful voice.

"Fine," Zuko answered shortly. He pushed aside the urge to throw the pants off of Appa's back, and made another patient, lopsided stitch.

Appa rumbled, soft and low. Zuko glanced up at Aang, who hadn't said a word since their escape from the Fire Nation ship and the fire-throwing, sociopathic _demon_ now known as Princess Katara. In some ways he was glad; false hope would have been almost harder to overcome than the bleak outlook Aang was exhibiting right now. But no twelve year old kid should have that kind of slump to his shoulders.

Sokka's pants landed on his head, but Zuko ignored his squawk of protest and climbed down to sit between Appa's horns.

"How much further?"

"Just over that ridge," Aang pointed. His voice was quiet and subdued.

Zuko peered into the fog, mist swirling around the rock crags below, and cleared his throat. "Listen, Aang, I – I'm not sure what we're going to find. But – "

"Why would she lie?" Aang interrupted, still in that sad little voice.

Zuko faltered. "I…I don't know, I – "

"Exactly. She had no reason to lie. I could tell she didn't want to tell me. She looked….she looked almost sorry. Like she cared."

That was one possibility Zuko felt comfortable with ruling out entirely. "Aang – "

"I…I know that even if she lied, things aren't going to be the same as they were when I left. It's been a hundred years. But….I just need to see. For myself."

Zuko nodded. "Okay."

Appa landed in an abandoned courtyard, littered with small piles of rubble and clumps of weeds sprouting up through cracks in the pavestones. Aang stood perfectly still, and looked in every direction for several long minutes before he sighed.

"She wasn't lying." He sent one last mournful look down at a lower balcony, one that had several roomy caves around the edges. "Let's go."

"Wait," Zuko said. "Is…is there anything you want to see if you can take with you? Did you leave any of your stuff in your room?"

"Monks don't have many earthly possessions," Aang spread his arms. "This is all I have."

"Nah," Sokka threw an arm around Aang's shoulders. "You got _us_ now, buddy."

A ghost of a smile flitted across Aang's features before disappearing. "Thanks, Sokka."

Zuko turned to climb back into Appa's saddle, when Sokka stopped him.

"Hey, look at this."

There was an arched opening to their left; it was dark and inconspicuous looking, but Sokka inched closer, peering at the ground.

"Someone was here recently."

Aang's eyes widened. "Are you sure?"

"He's the better tracker of the two of us," Zuko shrugged. "Although…Sokka, you're used to tracking in snow, are you sure?"

"Positive. Look." He pointed. "These footprints…they don't match."

"Uh…match what, exactly?"

"Anything. The Fire Nation armor that would have been in use a hundred years ago has been updated a lot, but their shoes are exactly the same, and these don't have the pointed toe."

"Okay…" Aang said slowly.

"But they don't match your shoes either," Sokka added, and sure enough, the simple slippers Aang wore were too rounded for the dusty marks left on the stone.

"So…not airbender, not Fire Nation…then what?" Zuko glanced around worriedly.

"Dunno. Let's go see."

Together, he and Sokka pulled their machetes from their belts, and Zuko made sure Aang was close behind as they crept down the tunnel. It stank of mold and rotten fruit, but it came out in a wide cavern that in turn opened up onto one of the many balconies on the cliffside.

"What is that?" Zuko peered at the odd pile on the floor, in the center of the room. There was an ornate box, resting beside a large ceramic dish that was full of ashes. Sitting behind that was a piece of parchment stretched out in a bamboo frame. He couldn't read the writing; it was in some language he didn't recognize, but Aang sighed and knelt in front of the display.

Zuko and Sokka watched in silence as Aang opened the small chest to reveal several scrolls, yellowed and covered in cobwebs.

"Airbending scrolls," he said quietly. "At least something survived."

For several long minutes they stood, Zuko and Sokka too familiar with grief to say anything; finally Aang scooped up the box and turned to go, only to jump in surprise and gasp.

Zuko whirled, expecting to find the demon Princess behind him, but instead he found himself looking down at a small, white and brown furry oddity that had big green eyes and even bigger ears. It chirped excitedly at Aang, then jumped up to curl around his shoulders.

"Uh…what is that?" Sokka leaned closer, then yelped when the creature made a swipe at his nose.

"It's a winged lemur," Aang smiled and scratched behind its ears. "Looks like something survived after all, huh little guy?" Happy chirping sounds. "I'm gonna call you Momo. How's that?"

Zuko blinked. "Momo."

"Uh-huh." Aang rummaged in his bag before pulling out a piece of dried mango. "Momo the flying lemur."

Zuko stared for a minute before he shrugged. "Okay. You ready now?"

Aang looked around one last time, but he didn't look quite as sad now with Momo perched atop his head. "Yeah. I'm ready."

Zuko watched him walk over and introduce their new pet to Appa; after a minute he knelt and dug an old piece of hide out of his knapsack, and a lump of charcoal. Carefully, he copied down the strange writing on the little memorial written in the foreign language. Hopefully at some point they would find someone who could translate it for them.

"C'mon," Sokka clambered over the saddle rim. "I'm starving, and there's not gonna be any meat here on a vegetarian island."

Zuko rolled his eyes, and followed.

/

Meditation, for lack of a better description, absolutely sucked.

It had always been her least favorite part of training, always boring and dull. She really didn't see the use for it, at least until she told her Uncle as much about six months ago, when they had first set out to sea. Uncle had given her a look of such profound disappointment that part of her had wanted to crawl under her chair.

"Princess," he had said, "Meditation is a crucial piece of mastering any art, but none more so than firebending."

Somehow she had found the audacity to roll her eyes. "I can't think of one successful firebender who spends his or her time _meditating_."

"Perhaps not," Uncle eyed her again, then more sorrowful than rebuking. "But your father has never meditated a day in his life. Are those the footsteps you wish to follow, Princess?"

Katara had somehow managed not to storm away, but she hadn't spoken to him for almost a week afterwards. On the last day of her silent tantrum, she had finished her lunch, excused herself, and lit the candles in her cabin before sitting lotus-style on the mat. She had forced herself to spend two hours there, inhaling and exhaling, focusing on those little flames and feeling the hum and flow of energy that her breath gave them.

It was still boring. But she hadn't missed a single day since then.

In. Out. Brighter. Dimmer.

The ship suddenly lurched, and she put her hands out to steady herself. She sighed, not knowing whether to be grateful or irritated that the mood was ruined, but ultimately she got up and went topside to check.

"Princess!" Captain Jee hurried over. "Storm clouds, on the horizon."

She squinted at the dark clouds and brushed her hair out of her eyes. "Make sure everything is tied down - topside and below. And that crack we noticed yesterday morning needs to be sealed."

"Yes, Princess." Jee barked her orders, soldiers scurried across the deck, and Katara approached her uncle, who stood at the railing watching the storm.

"It's likely to be a bad one," she said quietly.

Uncle nodded. "I knew it was coming. I could feel it in my bones this morning at breakfast."

There was once a time when Katara would have scoffed at the idea of predicting weather based on nothing but aches and pains, but not anymore. To her surprise, she found herself agreeing with him instead.

"I felt it too."

Uncle turned to her with gentle amusement. "My niece, your bones are not nearly old enough to feel the changes in the air."

Katara suddenly wished she had kept her mouth shut. She swallowed, and raised one shoulder indifferently. "Not my bones."

Uncle understood immediately, and his eyes darkened when they flicked down to her neck, where the high collar of her cold-weather armor hid the worse of the scar from view.

She cleared her throat. "Anyway, the crew is battening everything down. I suggest we remain inside until this passes over."

Uncle, his eyes now sad more than angry, nodded and followed her below deck.

/

"What's an elephant koi?"

Aang held his arms out full length, gesturing dramatically. "It's a huge fish, huge! And they're really safe and gentle, and beautiful, and they have these big fins on their back that are really easy to hold on to, and – "

"Whoa." Zuko waved one hand. "Why would you ride one of these things?"

Aang blinked. "Um…because it's fun?"

Sokka poked Zuko in the ribs. "Don't be such a stick in the mud."

"Fine, then _you_ go ride the giant fish with him."

"Mmm, see, I would, but," Sokka picked his fingernails with faked indifference, "I'm not a waterbender. You'd definitely be the better option of the two of us, in case something goes wrong."

"Nothing's going to go wrong," Aang insisted. "Elephant koi are really gentle."

"They're also really big," Zuko muttered. He dug one toe into the sand, peering out over the bay and trying not to picture himself being flung against the rocks by a giant sea creature.

"All right," he sighed finally. "Let's get this over with."

Aang beamed, and tugged off his robes. Zuko reluctantly did the same; there was snow around the bases of the trees, so the water wasn't going to be pleasant. But it would be more bearable if he had warm, dry clothes to change into after, so just his trunks would have to do.

Bearable, however, wasn't how he would have described the water once he actually jumped in.

" _Holy_ – "

"Come on, Zuko! We have to get out into deeper water!"

He grit his teeth to keep them from chattering. Every stroke through the water felt like needles were pricking his skin. He could hear Sokka laughing on the shore, and wished he knew a bending move that would create a tidal wave or something to drag his idiot brother in, too.

Finally Aang determined they were out deep enough, and for several minutes the two of them tread water, waiting for….well, he didn't know. He didn't want to know. This wasn't even his idea.

"Look!" Aang cried, sounding far too cheerful for someone who was swimming in freezing water wearing only trunks.

Zuko stared at the enormous, golden fin that was approaching them. "Uh –"

"Come on!" Aang positioned himself, while Zuko copied him and tried really hard not to panic, because he hadn't really anticipated "huge" being at least sixty feet over his head. And that was just the dorsal fin.

It came closer, and they reached out to grab hold, and suddenly Zuko's stomach wrenched in protest of being yanked out of the water.

He managed to squint his eyes open once all the jostling seemed to be over, and found he was standing on the koi's back, which was covered in gold scales. Aang was gripping the fin behind him, laughing his head off, and to Zuko's surprise, he found himself smiling too. It was kind of fun – the wind whistling past him, the sun making him a lot warmer.

At least, until the koi decided it was tired of the surface, and leaped out the water to dive.

Instinctively Zuko let go, an action he immediately regretted when he hit the water, hard.

Coughing, he glared at Aang, who looked guilty but also like he was having a blast.

"Fun?"

"Well, until they do that," Aang nodded. "I forgot, I guess. It's been a while."

Zuko's back and shoulders were still stinging considerably, but more than anything else he wanted to be out of the water. It felt kinda wimpy, a guy from the South Pole being unable to tolerate warmer waters, but he'd had his fill recently of swimming in subzero temperatures. Sue him for preferring dry ground for a little while.

Once they made the shore, though, Zuko's discomfort was forgotten.

"Uh…where's Sokka?"

Aang peered around the trees. "Maybe we came back to the wrong part of the beach?"

"No, look our clothes are still here." Zuko picked up his pants, turned to look for his brother in the other direction, and immediately yelped and fell down on his butt, having lost his balance in an attempt to get away from the razor-sharp golden fan pointed at his face.

He stared, still dripping wet and mostly naked and holding his pants in his lap, at the five warriors surrounding them. This had to be a dream. It just had to be. No one person could have this many bizarre and ridiculous things happen to them in such a short amount of time. It just wasn't fair.

"Uh –"

"Who are you, what is your rank, and how long until the first ship arrives?"

It was then that he noticed every single one of these warriors was a girl. And despite the probably-lethal situation, he couldn't help but smirk.

"You think this is a _joke?_ " The leader crouched down in front of him, and he swallowed. That fan was really sharp looking. And its wielder was especially angry looking, a fact that was not helped by the war paint and armor.

"No, no, I, uh – I just…my brother probably won't be very happy when he learns a bunch of, um, lady assassins took all three of us down. Unless you've killed him already?"

Unless he was imagining things, one corner of the girl's mouth twitched, like she was fighting a grin. "Not yet," she said stiffly. "Though I can't say it hasn't crossed my mind."

"What about you?" one of the other girls asked.

Zuko tried very hard not to blush, but of the five girls surrounding him, only the leader still looked like she wanted to kill him. The others were…well. They were just staring, and he was still mostly naked. So.

He cleared his throat. "Wh-what about me?"

"You don't seem surprised that a bunch of lady assassins took _you_ down."

"An equally scary and much tinier lady assassin gave me this black eye, and the spectacular bruise on my ribs," he rolled his eyes, "so I think I can believe a victory when the odds are in your favor."

The leader narrowed her eyes. "Hm."

There was a heartbeat or two, and he cleared his throat again. "Uh – look, not that I'm not feeling at all threatened here, but do you think maybe I could put my clothes back on while you decide whether or not you're going to kill me?"

A real, genuine smile cracked the leader's war paint, and she helped him to his feet. "Sorry," she said. "Kyoshi Island has stayed out of the war so far, and we'd really like to keep it that way. Anyone who we think might be leading the Fire Nation to us is our enemy."

He shrugged, wringing out his hair as best he could before pulling his parka on. "I understand. But trust me, we want to stay off the Fire Nation's map as much as you do." He paused, suddenly realizing something. "Um…Aang?"

"Aang? Who's Aang?" The leader quieried.

"The kid, he was with me, he talked me into riding the elephant koi – "

"At this time of year?"

"Oh, shut up, he's twelve, what was I supposed to do?"

"Well, I don't know, maybe be the grown up – "

"He did the sad eyes thing – "

" _Hey_."

Startled, they both turned to see Sokka, bound tightly in ropes and looking supremely annoyed. "As cute as your banter is, maybe you could save yourselves some time and look that way." He jutted his jaw towards the bay, and Zuko turned, only to have his third – fourth? honestly he'd lost count – mini heart attack of the day.

"Aang!"

The elephant koi were back, and Aang was riding them again. He waved manically with one arm. "Hey, Zuko! Watch this!"

He started using his bending to do flips and tricks over the dorsal fin. Zuko heard a muffled swear from beside him.

"Is – he's _airbending?"_

No point in denying it now. "Yeah. He's the Avatar."

The leader stared at him, slack jawed, before nodding. "Sure. Okay. Why not?"

"Believe me, I've asked myself that a lot lately."

It took a while, but they finally managed to get Aang back on dry ground. He bended himself dry, and dressed and bowed to the warriors. "Hi! I'm Aang."

The leader eyed him up and down, before apparently deciding that evidence was evidence, and shook his hand. "I'm Suki."

"Nice to meet you."

"Um, hello?" Sokka tugged at his bonds and whined, "Zuko, they won't let me go."

Zuko snorted. "What do you want me to do, make them?"

"You're a waterbender – "

"An _untrained_ waterbender."

"And you always win our wrestling fights at home – "

"Yeah, but then _they_ will beat _me_ , and then we're both tied up for being idiots."

"But I didn't do anything," Sokka pouted. "I'm not gonna try anything, either."

Zuko sighed, and glanced over at Suki. She rolled her eyes.

"Fine."

The moment he was free, Sokka glared at his captors. "I still think you had a bunch of guys helping you."

Suki's jaw tightened. Zuko quickly said, "Um, is there any place we could get some food? And Aang's flying bison is around here somewhere, too."

Suki, apparently having decided to ignore Sokka's death wish for the time being, smiled and nodded. "Sure. This way. The villagers will be really excited to meet the Avatar."

(Just so they knew whose side he was on, Zuko made a show of smacking Sokka upside the head as they followed their new lady assassin friends down the trail.)

/

Katara gnawed on her lip, a bad habit she'd picked up out here at sea.

"We're out of tar, Princess," Jee quietly said.

She sighed, knowing that the deep gauge in the ship's hull wasn't going to vanish the longer she glared at it.. "Very well. Where's the nearest supply?"

"Kyoshi Island. Just two days away. We should be able to hold it until then."

"Good. We'll need everyone to pull some double shifts, for security but also to have someone down here around the clock to keep an eye on it."

As always, Jee nodded and went off to relay her orders. He was always respectful, but had a way of asserting his years of experience that never made her feel unsure. He tried to be an asset to her, not a chaperone, and in some ways she knew her short time on this voyage had been made much more tolerable because of him.

She sighed again, and went below deck to change. The storm had left an unseasonable heat wave behind, and the air was thick and muggy. She felt much better in a short sleeved tunic and cropped pants, with her hair in its usual side braid.

Pausing in front of the mirror, Katara fingered the front of her neck. It wasn't the worst of the scar, that part was hidden by her hair, but it was gruesome looking all the same. She was aware that her crew knew the story of her scar, how she'd received it, and she was also aware that was probably the main reason she had zero disciplinary issues on board.

It was rather odd, at first, the sneaking suspicion that people seemed to actually like her here, but she'd grown used to it. And it wasn't like any of them were overly affectionate anyway. She just knew it would be rare otherwise for a girl her age to be in command of a crew like this, and still have it run as efficiently as they did.

 _At least it's good for something_ , she thought. Her fingertips traced the puckered, red skin, before she yanked them away and decided not to worry about it. So she had a scar on her neck. So what? It was hot outside, she wasn't about to roast herself alive wearing winter clothes just because they had a higher collar that would cover the scar completely. No, best to just be comfortable, and deal with the shocked looks and whispers later.

She actually didn't get that many stares, but Katara would have preferred those over the look on Uncle's face when he spotted it. She wasn't sure why – he looked devastated, like just the memory of that day was unravelling his soul, piece by piece. Her memories of the days following the Agni Kai were vauge – pain had a way of both dulling and sharpening your senses, so that you remembered very little, but still very vividly. She knew he had been at her bedside in the infirmary nonstop, and he had been the one to tell her of her father's final sentence.

He had also been the one to pretend he didn't see her cry after.

She shook herself out of her thoughts. Memories would only offer you so much good before they turned bitter. And her memories never had much besides bitter to offer anyway.

Katara took a deep breath, and turned to the control house to check their heading.

/


	5. Revelations

Zuko wasn't sure when, exactly, he became the mother hen of their traveling party. But when he woke up and his first thought was to make a mental list of all the vegetables he needed to get at the market today, he began to get worried.

Still, it wasn't like Sokka was going to do the shopping. So he grabbed one of their baskets and left their cozy upper room the village was letting them stay in. Kids ran and shouted in the muddy streets, smoke from meat huts and cook fires were already making his stomach growl; he shouldered his way through a clump of gossiping mothers and headed for the vegetable stalls.

Kyoshi wasn't quite as far south as home, but it was still cold enough that snow sat in the ruts and underneath the eaves. Aang was over by Kyoshi's statue – again – showing off for the village girls with some marble trick. Zuko rolled his eyes fondly, and began to peruse the peppers. Maybe he could dry some of them and use them in soups later as they traveled…

"Hey."

Startled, he looked up to see Suki and two of her warrior friends, dressed in full battle armor. He would have been nervous if it weren't for the friendly smirk the leader wore.

"Are you sure you and Sokka are related? You're so domestic and he's…" she gestured vaguely with an expression of distaste wrinkling her nose.

Zuko laughed, but then wondered if they'd meant the barb for him or his brother. Either way, they were right – if they ran into the Fire Nation again (which was only a matter of time, with their luck), they wouldn't stand a chance.

"Actually," he began, trying to come across as confident even when all three girls stared at him. He cleared his throat. "I could, um. Use some help? We've already had to fight off the Fire Nation once, and it's a long way to the North Pole. I'd really appreciate some lessons."

Suki eyed him carefully. "The secrets of the Kyoshi Warriors are for women alone – "

"I'm not asking to be made an honorary member," Zuko interrupted gently. "I'd look gods-awful in that outfit anyway. I just want to be able to hold my own in a fight and not be terrified of being a Zuko-bab."

Suki looked much more open, but one corner of her mouth twitched. "Zuko-bab?"

He felt his neck and ears turn warm. "Uh…I guess that's your proof that Sokka really is my brother?"

She laughed. "All right, c'mon. At the very least we can fix your sense of humor."

He grinned and hefted his basket on his hip. Shopping could wait; for now, he got to do something _useful_.

/

Katara pushed more sweaty strands of hair off her face, readjusted her grip on the shovel, and heaved another load of tar onto the wall. It hit with a disgusting _splat_ ; black flecks dotted her clothes and arms and chest and she was pretty sure she had a smudge of the gross stuff on her nose, but there was no point in trying to clean up until they'd finished the job.

Luckily for them, the tar pits on the eastern shore of Kyoshi Island had been completely uninhabited, the resources free for the taking. Everyone on board had hauled buckets and buckets and _buckets_ of the stuff down to the cargo hold, where unfortunately only the two smallest crew members could stand and still have room to patch the hole.

Thus Katara found herself standing in a tiny, smelly cargo hold with a man who looked old enough to be Uncle's father. Stooped, wrinkled, and very hard of hearing, Wei could barely lift his shovel to reach the lowest portion of the crack. Katara's arms and shoulders were screaming at her every time she lifted her own load of tar to the higher sections, near the ceiling.

She applied the next glob, and frowned when the ship rocked.

"Jee, how's the weather?"

There was a pause, then –

"A storm's picking up, Princess. Is it almost finished?"

Katara glanced at her companion, who was struck with a coughing fit, wheezing and leaning on his shovel to stand upright.

"Another hour at least. Make sure everything on deck's battened down."

The tiny little lamp sputtered; she'd set it on one of the wooden crates in the hold, but the stacks of similar crates and shelves lining the walls meant there was more shadow than light to see by. They couldn't put the flame anywhere near the tar, and she was beginning to get a headache from squinting to see what she was doing.

The ship rocked again, hard enough to make her put a hand to the wall to steady herself. Wei staggered and dropped his shovel of tar on the floor. Katara sighed, but then the ship lurched again, and she watched in slow motion as a large, heavy box on a top shelf was pitched over the edge.

There wasn't time to guide Wei to the side. Katara stumbled towards him, and tried to pull him out of the way but the ship lurched a third time and she lost her balance and ended up shoving him forward instead, and she heard voices yelling above before the box struck her upper back, sending her to the floor in a hot, searing flash of pain.

Dimly she could hear Jee and Uncle still bellowing her name; she grunted and tried to roll over. Thankfully the box hadn't landed directly on top of her, but her arm was pinned, and her head must have hit something on the way down because she could feel something hot and sticky running down her jaw.

" _Katara!"_

She managed to get her arm out from under the box finally, and rolled over, barely managing to catch the gasp before it left her lips.

She pushed up to her knees, willing the room to stop spinning. Bony fingers wrapped around her arm, and she glanced up to see Wei crouched beside her.

His lips moved, but her pulse was thudding in her ears. She shook her head, and winced at the movement. Her hair was sticking to her neck with the blood, the lamp had sputtered out when it fell off the boxes, and the only light source was the open hatch above.

Then even that was gone, because Jee stuck his entire torso through the opening. He reached down for her, and with Wei keeping her from falling again, Katara was able to reach up with her good arm and let him pull her through.

"Not done," she slurred, her knees buckling.

More than one pair of arms caught her, but she closed her eyes, to dizzy and tired to respond to the voices calling her name.

/

Suki grit her teeth, but finally managed to yank Zuko over her shoulder.

He hit the mat, letting out a groan that turned into a laugh. "That didn't hurt quite as bad as last time."

She smirked. "Shame."

Once he clambered to his feet, she eyed him carefully – he was actually nice, and fun to be around. This was their second day of lessons, and she was enjoying herself. She didn't want to _really_ maim him in the process.

"Okay?"

"Yeah," he stretched, and she rolled her eyes when she spotted several other girls watching him closely. They noticed her glare, though, and quickly averted their gazes.

"Quit distracting my warriors."

To her surprise, his face flooded a bright pink, and he shuffled his feet uncertainly.

"S- uh, sorry."

"It's fine," she muttered, feeling bad for making him self-conscious. "It's not like you're doing it on purpose."

Some of his awkwardness vanished, and he grinned. "I can't really help it, you know, so if you need me to leave because I'm so _distracting_ – "

Suki shoved him, but couldn't totally smother her laugh. "I'm sorry, I thought I agreed to help _you_ , not your brother."

At that, Zuko sobered. "You know, um…he's not really that bad."

She gave him a blank stare. He winced.

"Okay, he is at the moment, but….you don't understand what it's like back home for us. Me and him, we're in charge of hunting, and we have to feed the whole village, while all the mothers and kids stay and do chores around the house and stuff. It hasn't…I guess he hasn't realized yet that it's only that way because it works, not because the women aren't able to do anything else."

Suki considered it. She could easily see how Sokka could start thinking that the men had all the important chores – if it really was him, Zuko, and a bunch of young mothers that really did need to stay with their kids…then, yeah.

"Maybe you should tell him that?"

Zuko shook his head. "Sokka learns better the, um. The hard way."

It was a few seconds before Suki understood the hopeful look he was giving her.

"Uh-uh. Not happening."

"Come on, Suki, please? He's no better at fighting than I was, and I think we're really going to need it."

Well, when he put it that way….

"Fine. But he makes _one_ sexist comment, and I – "

"You have my full permission to absolutely clobber him," Zuko nodded. "It's not like he's going to listen to you unless he gets taken down a few pegs, anyway."

Thus, two mornings later, Suki found herself in the deserted dojo with Sokka.

It had barely been ten minutes, and she already wanted to strangle him.

He huffed, irritated that she'd corrected his form yet again. "Well, yeah, but back home we do it – "

"Back home isn't going to help you survive if the Fire Nation catches you," she snapped. Sokka's eyes widened. "You think they'll be impressed with a boomerang and some funny catch phrases?"

He stared at her for a moment, and then grinned slyly. "You think my catch phrases are funny?"

Suki let out a long, slow exhale through her teeth, and he hastily amended, "I mean, um. Sorry. This is all just, uh….new. And you're literally the first girl I've ever met who can beat me up, so…"

"Your brother said there was one, before you got here."

Sokka nodded. "Yeah, that's the princess, but technically she never beat _me_ up. Just Zuko. Though in his defense, I'm pretty sure she's being controlled by a demon of some kind."

She barely managed to catch herself before she smiled. "Well, you're not much better than he is, so the point stands. Now run that last set one more time."

To her surprise, he quit arguing, and proved to be a capable fighter. His reflexes were decent to begin with, and when he quit goofing off he could actually hold his own against her.

"Better," she conceded after almost an hour. "Much better. Mostly because you actually shut up for once."

He grinned, unaffected. "Did that actually pain you? To admit I'm not completely hopeless?"

"I never said you weren't," she snapped, but had to fight a smile.

He saw it anyway, but didn't comment. Instead he reached for his parka and boomerang, set against the wall. "I know today wasn't something you were looking forward to, and I also know you only said yes because you possibly have a tiny crush on my brother – "

"What?" Suki recoiled. "Ew – no, he's – "

"But I appreciate it regardless –"

"Sokka – " she had to fight the laugh when she noticed the casual way he was examining his fingernails.

"- even though he's clearly the better looking of the two of us – "

"No," Suki said, and froze.

Sokka glanced at her, and grinned. " _Oh,"_ he said. "He's not? So would that therefore imply _I'm_ the better looking?"

She refused to cave. "No, it implies that you're both equally ugly."

Sokka's mouth dropped open in outrage, but her cackle didn't quite cover up the snort that came from outside the window. She leaned out, and rolled her eyes.

"Seriously? You decided to chaperone? I thought you were trying _not_ to be the mom friend."

Zuko shrugged. "I was afraid you'd murder him. And by the time I was convinced you weren't, the conversation was too amusing."

Sokka sniffed, put one hand over his heart. "Aw, bro, you _do_ care."

Zuko pointed toward the building they were staying in. "I made dinner."

"Food!" In a flash, Sokka was out the door, yelling a last _thank-you_ over his shoulder. Suki nimbly climbed out the window and settled against the side of the building beside Zuko.

"Thank you," he said quietly. She looked over at him, and noticed the last traces of his black eye that still hadn't faded in the past week. She wondered just what it was about this Princess Katara that had both boys so scared.

"Suki!" It was the village leader. "Fire Nation soldiers, headed up the trail! They're carrying a white flag but it's a small squadron, all armed."

She was on her feet in seconds. "Get the kids inside."

Without waiting to see if she'd be obeyed, she turned to Zuko. "You need to go. Get to the west side of the island, where they won't see Appa fly away."

He nodded, opened his mouth to say something, closed again, and pulled her in for a tight hug. "Thanks, Suki."

She smiled, nodded, but he turned and sprinted away before she could reply.

/

Zuko barreled into their room. "Sokka!"

His brother jerked upright from his bed. "C'mon, I just got done with a grueling – what's wrong?"

Zuko didn't look up from where he was flinging clothes into their bags. "Fire Nation. I don't think they know we're here but they'll be here in minutes. We have to go."

Sokka swore, and grabbed their remaining belongings. The two of them ran down the stairs, and smack into Aang.

"Hey guys!" He smiled brightly. "Are you going on a picnic? Can I come?"

Zuko hefted the bags in one hand over his shoulder, and used his now free hand to spin Aang back the way he'd come. "Nope, we gotta go. The Fire Nation's here and we can't let them see us."

"What?" Aang tried to back up; Zuko clamped his hand more firmly on the kid's shoulder and steered him into a back ally towards the shed where Appa was staying. "We need to stay and help!"

"Buddy, they're looking for you," Sokka checked around the corner before leading them across the street. "You saw what they're like."

"But – " Aang protested, only to find Zuko's hand over his mouth.

He struggled, but Zuko pulled him down to crouch behind a building. "Sh," Zuko hissed.

Aang went still, and peeked around the corner.

Zuko watched over his head, saw the soldiers in the dark red uniforms heading up the steps into the building where the Kyoshi Warriors trained. Suki stood in the doorway. His breath caught; one of the soldiers was carrying a smaller, limp form – he recognized the long black hair instantly.

"How'd she get hurt?" Sokka whispered. "Surely you didn't hit her that hard."

Zuko had to agree. He was pretty sure he couldn't hit _anybody_ that hard. He grimaced when the soldier turned and he saw a streak of blood and something that looked like mud across the princess's temple.

Still, it could be a ruse….

He turned to Sokka. "Get Aang and Appa to the west shore."

"What?" both of them yelped loudly. He shushed them.

"Look, this could be a trick. I'm not leaving this village until I'm sure they're just here for help."

Sokka glared at him. "So I get to be the babysitter?"

"Hey!"

Zuko shoved them. "Would you just _go?_ "

He watched them, made sure they got inside Appa's shed, before he turned and retraced his steps. It took almost fifteen minutes, but he finally found himself beneath the back window of the dojo. He tried not to breathe too loudly so he could listen –

" – don't have any medical training – "

"At least some bandages. Some ointment, perhaps?"

It was a soldier, an older one by the sound of him, arguing with Suki. Zuko frowned….the soldier didn't sound like he was ordering the villagers about. In fact, he sounded almost…desperate?

There was a pause, then –

"I'll see if I can find anything," Suki said quietly. He heard her steps move towards him, and crouched lower. Cupboard doors opened and shut, jars clinked on shelves, and then the sound of water being poured.

"I'll need to clean it, first."

Silence.

Suki cleared her throat. "Uh…y-you'll need to remove your shirt."

Instantly the soldier protested. "I can't leave the princess alone – "

"Jee," said a voice that sounded just like Katara, only she didn't sound nearly that weary last time. "I'll be fine. You can wait out on the porch."

Zuko could almost hear the soldier grinding his teeth in protest, but he simply said, "Yes, Princess."

Footsteps shuffled out, the door snapped shut, and Zuko held his breath, listening for any signs of an attack coming from inside.

Instead, he only heart the faint rustle of cloth, and a sharp intake of breath that he presumed was one of pain. The princess must have really been injured, then. Cautiously, he moved his head up past the windowsill.

The princess sat facing away from him, stripped to the waist save for her upper wrappings. Suki stood beside her, with a clean rag and a bowl of water that was slowly turning a faint red hue.

"How did this happen?" Suki asked quietly.

Katara rolled her shoulders, and moved her long hair to one side, blocking Zuko's view of her face entirely. "Our ship had a leak," she said in a dull voice. "And some of the boxes in the cargo hold were not properly anchored."

Suki glanced up at her face, but still said, "I…wasn't talking about that."

Zuko watched every muscle in Katara's body go rigid; he could tell she was giving Suki an incredulous look.

"That's none of – " she cut off abruptly, gasping and jerking her head to the right.

Zuko turned to look that direction, and his blood turned to ice – Katara was looking right at him in the full-length mirrors that hung on the opposite wall of the dojo. Before he could do anything, non-reflection Katara swiveled in her seat to pin him with narrowed eyes.

"Guards!"

Zuko sprang up from his crouch, pelted down the back ally, through the village and towards the trail he knew Sokka and Aang would have taken; he could hear shouting and cursing behind him, and when he chanced a peek over his shoulder he saw at least three buildings in flames.

The guilt was already hitting him, but he kept his feet moving – until he rounded a corner too fast and ran into a soldier.

The soldier raised one arm, and Zuko mindlessly reached out, grabbed the wrist and flipped them over his shoulder. He spun back around and kept running, wishing he was able to be in two places at once – Sokka and Aang needed to leave, but he couldn't just desert the village. This was all his fault, anyway.

He sprinted down the street, dodging fireballs and leaping over fallen soldiers. Everywhere he looked there seemed to be flames, reflected in golden fans and licking hungrily at the thatch roofs.

He crossed the opening of a small alley, and collided with another, but this time smaller, body. Instinctively he grabbed their arms to steady them both, but his heart stuck in his throat when he looked up to meet the golden-eyed, irritated gaze of Princess Katara.

"Uh –"

Immediately she made a swipe for his midsection. He dodged, but felt her manicured nails graze his stomach. Another jab, this one at his head – though thankfully with no fire – and this time he caught her by the wrist, twisted and flipped her over his shoulder.

She hit the ground with a startled _oof_ , then stared up at him. He still had her by the arm, and looked down at her, feeling rather smug but also just a little guilty – she was younger than Sokka, after all. Back home it was his duty to protect kids like her.

All of his guilt was erased however, when she swung her legs up and kicked him in the stomach. He doubled over – this girl had serious leg muscles – and she used that to her advantage. One hand snatched the front of his tunic, the other twisted in his grasp and suddenly he was his back, with his shoulders lying on top of her thighs and her arm around his neck, squeezing hard.

His vision began to go a little fuzzy, he clawed at her arm but her grip was lethal, and then she wrapped her legs around him from behind –

His hands scrabbled at the small of her back – dimly he registered that at least she'd thought to put her shirt back on before she came outside – and he felt something soft and slippery brush his fingers. Instinctively, he yanked, and her head jerked back with a yelp, causing her grip on him to loosen just enough to wriggle free.

He spun on his knees and sent his fist ploughing straight into her face, knocking her backwards – it was a dirty, cheap shot, right where her existing injury was, and he knew it – but he didn't even wait to see if she was okay. He got up and ran, passing Suki and her warriors.

"I'm sorry!" He started to slow down, but Suki waved him on.

"Don't worry about us! Just go!"

He nodded, and dug his toes into the early spring mud as he left the smoking village behind.

/

 _ **Sorrysorrysorry I promise it won't take so long next time**_


End file.
